Beatrice Kean Seymour Explained

Beatrice Kean Seymour
Birth Date:1886 9, df=yes
Birth Place:Clapham, south London
Nationality:English
Occupation:Writer

Beatrice Kean Seymour (1 September 1886 – 31 October 1955) was a prolific British novelist and short story writer. Her obituary in The Times described her as skilled at portraying English domestic life.

Biography

Beatrice Kean Seymour (née Beatrice Mary Stapleton) was born in Clapham, south London into a working-class family. Her father David was a farrier.[1]

She attended a secretarial school and was the first wife of William Kean Seymour.[2] [3]

She began her professional life as a writer of short stories for magazines. However, at the suggestion of an editor, she reworked one of her unpublished short stories into her first novel, Invisible Tides, subsequently writing over 30 books during a career that spanned more than three decades. Her novels were published almost annually until shortly before her death from heart problems in 1955.[4]

Approach to writing

Seymour believed that the role of the novelist is to help readers think through their emotions.[5] She saw the novel as far superior to the short story as a vehicle for conveying social ideas.[6]

Critical reception

Some British reviewers reportedly considered Invisible Tides to be the best novel of 1920.[7] A reviewer from The Bookman wrote that it was: "a good and moving story, brilliantly set down, having affinities, it seems to us, with Jude the Obscure on the one hand and with Mr. McKenna's Sonia on the other. Mrs. Seymour is strong in characterisation, subtle and revealing in dialogue, and exquisite in her descriptions of nature, touched as they are with a fine imaginativeness".[8]

Her 1925 novel Unveiled received a glowing review in the 30 May 1925 issue of The New Yorker.[9] But some critical responses were not so favourable. A Times Literary Supplement critic wrote of her 1927 novel Three Wives: "Had Miss Seymour compressed her novel into three-quarters its present length, it might have been a really distinguished piece of work".[10]

When she died in 1955, The Times said of her: “She had already established herself as a literary figure of importance 30 years ago and the skill and variety with which she portrayed English domestic scenes and projected them against a larger social and political background are of a high order”.

More recently, her novels have been appraised as reflecting an alertness to the role of women in society.[11]

Published works

External sources

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Nicola Beauman . Seymour, Beatrice Mary Kean [née Beatrice Mary Stapleton] (1886–1955), novelist : Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |publisher=Oxfordindex.oup.com |date=22 February 1999 |accessdate=28 August 2013].
  2. Book: Henry Colin Gray Matthew. Brian Howard Harrison. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Drysdale-Ekins v. 18. Ela-Fancourt. 11 August 2013. 2004. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-861411-1.
  3. Book: Alfred Charles Ward. Maurice Hussey. Longman companion to twentieth century literature. 10 August 2013. November 1981. Longman. 978-0-582-35307-7.
  4. News: Mrs. Beatrice Kean Seymour. The Times (London, England). November 1955.
  5. News: Kean Seymour. Beatrice. article. The Bookman (London). April 1925. 68 . 8.
  6. Book: Leonard Alfred George Strong. Adrian Richard ALINGTON. Beginnings, Etc. [Essays by Adrian Alington and Other Writers of Fiction on Their Own Literary Beginnings. Edited by L.A.G. Strong.].]. 9 August 2013. 1935. T. Nelson & Sons.
  7. News: Books Reviewed for the Gazette Times Readers. The Pittsburgh Gazette Times. 5 September 1921. 14.
  8. News: Invisible Tides. The Bookman (London, England) . 57:156 . January 1920.
  9. Books. The New Yorker. 30 May 1925. 26.
  10. News: Review of Three Wives. Times Literary Supplement. 1927. 688.
  11. Book: Virginia Blain. Patricia Clements. Isobel Grundy. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. 9 August 2013. 1990. B. T. Batsford Limited. 978-0-7134-5848-0.

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